189- #365daysofselfcare (March 2017)

Ok, now that I'm in a series of routines, I won't bother with repeating my daily morning and evening facial cleansing... maybe only shaving, and facial masks - those are more rare. 

I also have a workout routine, either alternating between free-form or following the Pilates for scoliosis, which is a 12 minute long run by Jessica Valant Pilates. I just found her also on twitter. 

My back, especially my lumbar region, hurts almost daily. Some days are far worse than others and I find that on those, I can do no exercise at all, so I'll create a visual aid to follow which days I manage to do either or both, and for how long. 

Until I sort that out, I'll do a written form that may eventually be deleted. 

So, March starts with day 39, a Wednesday. I managed a 12 minute free-form workout.
on Day 40, I broke all my previous 39 days, with a 15 minutes free-form, and 8 &half minutes out of the 12 of the scoliosis one. 

I just decided on this day 40 to alternate my workout routines as follows : one day (yesterday) with both free-from and scoliosis, then, today day 41 I did 20 minutes of free-form (but incorporated a couple exercises from the video), and tomorrow I'll do just the video. This way, I'll be gradual in my workout, and adapt my time schedules. 

March 4 is day 42. I realized this alternation isn't very easy to implement, because I want to keep my daily requirement at 20+ minutes, and find the scoliosis exercises still too painful to finish, and wouldn't be able to repeat. 

So, with all that in mind, I did a quick, 2 minutes warm-up, then 7 minutes of that scoliosis video, and continued free-form, reaching a total of 25 minutes of workout today (day 42).

Day 43, or March 5 was a Sunday. The first evening that I forgot to do my full self-care routine and realized it only too late, after I had been laying for a while, in the dark. 
However, I also renewed with a relaxing activity that I love and had to put aside for 3 years : gardening. Today was a preliminary session, planting flowers and seeds in planters, and soon, transfer that into the garden itself.  

Day 44, March 6. I almost listened to my lazy self to avoid my workout.  I pushed that voice away and managed 17 minutes free-form, incorporating a few exercises from Jessica's vid (without actually following it, though). 

Day 45 was the same way, and again I fought my lazy self into a 17 minutes free-form once more, and on day 46 my back pains started, limiting me to 13 minutes... and... the last that I could do for the moment. 

March 9 & 10 are days 47-48, with much severe aches with no workout, but today, day 48 I managed to walk - quite a bit, actually : 1.7 km to a park, and then some more between stores but I didn't measure. I consider my walks to be part of my self-care, as they are a form  of physical exercise. 

March 11-19 was a difficult extended week, with much less emphasis on self-care, as depression and self-doubts took over. I still did my routines but no workouts, except for once, and since I'm writing this on March 21, I don't recall when I had! 

March 20, day 58, marks my return to workout, with Jessica's pilates video.